Downgrading to portable

[ryandsimmons]

Hi chaps,

Quick question, I have a scope I have built up over a few years, a c8 on a cg5 mount, with all the trimmings, which I have been doing a lot of (rather poor) photography on as well as some good visual work.

Unfortunately I am now mid divorce, and now living central London, which means light pollution and selling my car, so no more country trips.

My question is what would people recommend as the downgrade path? I am about to put the cg5 and c8 up for sale, but will keep all my lenses, cameras etc which fit in a bag. But what I want is a scope that I can jump on a train with and head down to the new forest camping etc and still do something with. Ideally some rubbish pictures along with the visual.

Is there such a thing? Given the choice I think I would rather do photos than visual, but visual is better than nothing.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Ryan

[ronin]

The "problem" is that you still need a mount and they are the inconvenient item.

The "normal" dobsonians are out of consideration - odd question could you build a scope ?

Thinking of a small ultra portable type item in say 6" diameter format.

Sumarian type construction, thinking of a 150PL donor and conversion.

Does anyone else know of someone that would built/convert one?

Almost the standard is a mount and say an 80mm refractor, 70mm being easier to transport.

In which case small refractor and something like the Vixen Porta mount or if goto required then the iOptron SmartEQ.

Personally I would go looking at something like a 72mm ED refractor.

For transport look at a trolly bag which will hold all the bits. I drop an ETX-70 into a fairly small bag and it holds everything except tripod. Power is via a Tracer.

It is not easy as there are a lot of compromises to be made.

[Stu]

I guess a lot depends on budget Ryan. You could look at an Astrotrac on a decent photo tripod with perhaps an 80ED or similar? That would give you imaging capability and you could perhaps try a Mini Ercole or similar for visual?

[Kropster]

How about sticking to imaging using DSLR and various lenses?..... I believe Skywatcher do a small-ish mount for imaging.

[Stu]

How about sticking to imaging using DSLR and various lenses?..... I believe Skywatcher do a small-ish mount for imaging.

Star Adventurer.....

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer.html

[ryandsimmons]

Cheers all.

Budget is whatever I get for my scope, so maybe a grand at most.

Thanks for all the suggestions,  I think visual will have to be the way to go, and forget about photography for the next few years.  Too many compromises needed.